At long last, I bring to you my valued {grow} folks, a true B2B social media success story that can really be measured by MONEY.  I believe this is the only one in the world.  ; )  And it is GENIUS!

Best of all, the success comes from one of our very own {grow}-er’s, Nathan Dube aka @DubiousMonk, a frequent comment contributor.

Nathan works in the marketing department of Expert Laser Services of  Southbridge, MA.  The company is a managed print services provider and provides printer/copier sales, service and supplies.  Nathan’s challenge was to increase awareness for his company through social media initiatives.

His idea was to let people release their technology angst by finding the most creative ways to destroy their printer — on video.  The “Destroy Your Printer Video Contest” was promoted through the company’s blog,  Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.  The oddball humor of the contest gave it a great buzz and more – web traffic more than doubled and the company gained more than 100 new inbound links. Recycler magazine did an Internet TV special about the contest as well as an article which was the most-read topics on the site for several weeks.

The submissions can be found here and they are hilarious.  The winning entry involves a backhoe (but I think the dynamite should have won: “We’re approaching the target!”).

Momentum for the contest picked up as people fell in love with the crazy ways people destroyed their printers.  One fan was an employee of nearby Telesian Technologies, who called up Expert Laser Services and asked them to be their new service provider.

That’s right.  New business. Money in the bank from a social media victory.

Nathan said getting a new customer was just icing on the cake. “The focus of the contest  was not ‘let’s get customers’,” he said. ” The focus was to drive more traffic to the website, build inbound links, and create good content.  The fact that we landed a new service and repair customer was not our goal, but it happened.”

And to make a happy ending even happier, the winner of the contest, Cottage Revolution of Wales, MA, donated their winning toner cartridges to Catholic Charities.

8 Comments

• 

  By John Bottom, October 19, 2009 @ 2:33 am

  Good to hear some concrete evidence. Thanks for posting Mark, well done on the initiative, Nathan. I look forward to being able to post some concrete figures on case studies of our own soon…
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  By Ethan Waldman, October 19, 2009 @ 6:57 am

  Cool article! Great to see an example of a social media effort panning out in the real world. Also especially nice that they aren’t a giant company. One thing- why not make that youtube video an actual embedded video? I was confused when I clicked it and it kept launching their website.
• 

  By Gordie Rogers, October 19, 2009 @ 7:35 am

  What a creative idea! It’s cool how they weren’t just in it for new customers.
• 

  By Seth Powers, October 19, 2009 @ 9:20 am

  It’s great to see tangible benefits for a social media plan. Especially when they weren’t even expecting it!

  http://www.twitter.com/rightminds
• 

  By Nathan Dube, October 19, 2009 @ 10:04 am

  In fact the explosion was the first winner, when I called to ask what kind of toners they wanted they said they were not interested. I called back and said who I was, who their employee was (who called to verify the name of the manager who gave the employee permission to enter the contest) and they still turned it down! So we went with the runner up and it worked out for the best.

Other Links to this Post

1. Twitternytta (vecka 43) | The Brand-Man — October 23, 2009 @ 6:35 am

2. What is social media success in B2B... and some examples | B2B Voices — October 23, 2009 @ 5:29 pm

3. Case Study Crunch: IT and Technical « The Cube — May 26, 2010 @ 11:57 am

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